Key Factors to Improve Conversion Rates Using Psychology and Proper Web Design

Let’s get right down to business – you want to increase conversion rates, and you want those numbers to be as high as possible. Not only that, but you want this to be ethical, feasible in the long-term, and that will allow you to keep the rates and customers you have. And guess what – you’re not the only one who thinks like this. You need to stand out, you need to push through, and get above and beyond the competition. In other words – whatever tools you have, you should use them.

Now, the issue with these tools is that while everybody wants better conversion rates, not everybody is ready to think outside the box. Improving your SEO, investing more money into marketing, and, of course, getting better products – these will all give you great returns. However, these are standard. What is not standard, however, is combining psychology and web design.

Why combine psychology and web design?

Now, people have issues with the above-mentioned idea. Namely, the design is something fluid, fun…artsy. Psychology on the other hand, while useful, sounds a bit clinical, even robotic. Completely academic and somber. However, the thing here is how you use it.  Psychology is the study of the human mind, and with it, it studies and explains human behavior. This means that you can understand why we make certain choices, and what makes a person attracted to one element in the design as opposed to another. No matter if it’s running a business, or being directly involved with quality content marketing and sales, psychology will help.

In other words, by using psychology in your web design process, you figure out what makes people tick, what makes us think and act in the way we do. This, then, leads to making your design process becoming more natural, and easier. By understanding a concept fully, you get to completely integrate certain elements into your work. You will get a thorough understanding of why web design should be implemented. This, finally, leads to much better conversion rates, better results, and better business dealings in general. So, now that you know why this is so important, below you can see the key factors that influence conversion rates.

Limited capacity and annoyance

One of the first aspects you need to understand, that are part of proper web design practices that maximize conversion rates, is a limitation. Or, rather, the limitation of the human mind. Look at it in this way – the mind is like a computer that only has a certain amount of computing power. Now, its potential is insane, it’s very complex. However, limitations still exist, and some are important to know.

Namely, you want to get people to check out your website, and to stay there at least a little while. This is supposed to lead to you gaining some conversions. Now, in order to achieve this, you need to make the page attractive, and you need to remove the barriers that would prevent someone from seeing your page as attractive. One such barrier, tied to our brains “computing power” is over-complexity. Know that this is a universal barrier. Anyone, from companies in India to Brisbane SEO experts set in Australia, everyone can use this to his or her advantage. It’s not a matter of nationality, race, or creed, but purely of the human mind.

Namely, overly complex websites, with too many features, will drain our attention. This can pull our focus away from the things you want us to concentrate on, and may even annoy us to the extent that we will drop your page altogether. Another issue that can occur here is the paradox of choice. By being overwhelmed with too many options, we may refuse to make any choice at all. So it’s a sad fact that even the best content and the most lovingly designed features will fall to the wayside if there is too much of them.

To give you an example, think of a nicely designed website. The colors are right, the fonts, spacing, everything is as it should be. However, you simply can’t decide where to start and what to focus on. You want to shop and buy certain items, but you can’t access due to all the features the website has. It’s great if you have many options to test a piece of clothing out, that you can read the history of the manufacturer and the manufacturing process behind the item. You dig through menu after menu, barely noticing the “buy now” option, and simply give up. Or, at best, this person may buy something, but never return. You may have invested lots of money into every kind of marketing, from SEO efforts to social media, but this won’t matter much if people don’t want to stay on your website for more than a minute.

Did you ever open a web page, only to have one video, a shopping assistant, two share icons, and a subscription pop up just appear on the screen? Does that really make you want to stay on the same page?

Information saturation and attention spans

A very close point to the previous one, you should never forget that we can handle a limited amount of information at a time. Have you ever opened a website and your eyes started hurting after a couple of minutes? A garish, unaesthetic website leads to you simply becoming overwhelmed with visual stimuli. This is the psychological reason which is behind you being annoyed by ugly websites. Think of websites oversaturated with clunky elements, too many images and charts.

Our brains also crave harmony, and too much information in the form of too many color palettes on a screen are confusing as well. Simply, things that don’t occur in nature will mess with your head, and make it difficult to process everything. For this reason, we suggest you try out minimalism. A simple, calming pallet, soothing and clear, can get the job done. It won’t draw away attention from whatever it is you want your customers to focus on, increase the chance for a conversion.

The reason you may have this urge to use clashing, strong colors with a mix of a little bit of everything on the page is that we are attracted to bright, popping things. Our attention spans are not what they used to be, which means that you need to catch it as quickly as you can. It’s a fine line between something that pulls one attention right then and there, as opposed to something that is simply too much, that pushes a customer away.

Leading people by the hand

No matter how well informed, well read, and well educated your potential clients are, a little nudging goes a long way. Namely, we already mentioned how limited our attention spans are. What we haven’t stated is that humans appreciate a bit of direction. Now, of course, we’re saying direction, not control. So how do you use this to your advantage? By moving things in the direction that you want.

Namely, one of the things you can do is set clear, specific guidelines that will lead people to wherever you want them to go. First, you want to get a good hierarchical structure for your website. In other words, standard drop-down menus, with no more than 3 or 4 levels. This is there to make things simple and easy to use. The better you set this up, the fewer barriers will be there between them buying something, and you make a profit.

The next thing you want to do is not only use the structure but color and aesthetics to your advantage. Namely, your shopping cart buttons, contact information, payment options, buy now buttons, and the rest that you really want your customers to click on needs to be taken care off. Set them up in clear, eye-catching colors and shapes. Let your website lead the user towards these important points of interest.  

The importance of color

Finally, understanding the psychology behind colours is important if you want to completely integrate psychology and web design. Namely, colors impact how we feel, the influence our moods, and they can create very interesting and unexpected effects. Namely, every color, to a lesser or greater extent, invokes a certain emotion. This gives you a bit more control over how people will perceive your website.

Just to give you a couple of examples, imagine a website that provides spa and massage services. Imagine if the color palette for that website is just black, and deep, crimson red. Doesn’t that sound just…strange to you? When we want to get a massage, we expect something soothing and relaxing. Black and deep red are better for a website that goes for a gothic, dark feel. Something that sells Halloween costumes, or a horror fan page. Our responses to certain colors are completely natural, and so too are the connotations certain colors invoke. Brighter tones invoke feelings of energy, vitality, but if not used properly, they can be annoying, even garish. Darker shades are subtle, calming, grounded, and elegant, but can be boring, or dull if you don’t use them the way you should.

Conclusion

If you want to make the most out of your conversion rates, you need to use psychology, and proper web design, at the same time. By understanding the psychological aspects of certain web design elements, you can use said elements much more completely. You gain a more thorough knowledge of the things you use and get the opportunity to maximize your results.